If you are so inclined, today is a day to laugh at me.
I finally (after 4 years) got all my old scrapbooks out of storage and thought you’d like to see just a sampling of the ridiculousness. Just to see the progression of “style” and what I made a priority in the last almost-20 years I’ve been recording memories.
I very very first started scrapbooking when I was in 8th grade (1995) and I accompanied my mother to a Creative Memories party (remember them? Oh wait, they’re still around).
This first page is the page I made at the actual party…. and then my parents gave me the rest of the book to put it in for my junior high graduation.
Notice the random cat stamps floating around. And my name in the top right hand corner. And the shapes cut out in no rhyme or reason. Classic 13-yr-old first-time scrapbooking page.
From around the same time … A couple pages from my 8th-grade-trip to Washington DC.
The nice thing about these pages is I actually WROTE journaling. Maybe the most journaling I did in any of these older scrapbooks.
The ridiculous thing about this page is I used all of these bizarrely designed and bizarrely colored diecuts. A teddy bear + cloud to label the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier? Seriously.
1995, y’all.
More AMAZING choices.
SO glad I still have the negatives for these photos, since I cut out such strange shapes.
A couple pages from 1997. More bizarre shapes and diecuts. Hand-witten title. Messy and ridiculous.
What a wreck.
This 2-page spread is from the school play January 1997.
Notice the clever absurd speech bubbles that actually don’t have anything to do with the show at all?
Notice the words/phrases cut out from the magazine?
Plus this doesn’t include one of the bizarre stories about this show, when the director rearranged all the cast just a few weeks before the performances.
One of the many reasons I need to re-record all these memories.
A year later – still Creative Memories album. December and January 1998.
2 different plays I was in.
I had clearly started getting lazy and/or too busy to put in too much effort because this is almost exclusively just photos pasted ont to the plain white page.
Boring. No real stories. Annoying.
These next few pages are photos from 1999 – my senior year.
I was poor so my senior year scrapbook is 8.5×11″ pages in what I seem to remember were hand-me-down binders.
What kind of person uses hand-me-down binders?
Also, obviously just trying to keep up because again these are just photos pasted on paper with little/no embellishment of any kind.
Skipping a few years… now I think this is February or March 2002. About a year after Andrew and I started dating.
February 2002 …. I finally put in a little more effort. Starting to mat (and double mat) photos.
This page – August 2002 – clearly the most effort I put into a scrapbooking page in years.
Skipping a little … June 2004.
This is around when I started reading scrapbooking blogs and magazines on a regular basis.
Ribbon border on the bottom, hand-drawn details around the photo. Significantly more journaling (though still not much). Also starting to allow more white space.
Also, please note these pages are from 8 years ago and I still haven’t spent the money for a binder to put them all in.
Because I am cheap. That’s all there is too it.
Fall 2004 – again more effort.
Even computer-type journaling. I’m so fancy.
This is our college-church-group in Phoenix. Almost everyone in these photos are now married with kids.
January 2005… And now I start with the foam-stamp details. Which I proceeded to use on nearly every single layout.
See?
Christmas 2005 …. Busy busy background – probably because I was gifted these papers and wanted to use them.
I have a scrapbook for a vacation we took summer of 2006, but I honestly don’t know if I have anything after that.
I have blog posts (starting January 2006) and I’m starting to do more Blurb books.
I think it’s interesting that you can clearly see when I started getting more external influence. I don’t know if it was a subconscious comparing myself to the published pages or not.
Good laugh, right?
What do your old scrapbook pages look like?
Oh Amy, I LOVE THESE ALBUM PAGES!! Love seeing the progression of scrapbooking styles over the years.
And yes, thank God for negatives! I can’t believe how I butchered some of my most favorite pictures!
Makes me sad that I’ve not scrapbooked much over theses past several years. It will be hard for me to tell the stories behind each image.
MUST GET STARTED AGAIN! Thanks for the inspiration Amy.
These are great! My first scrapbook page is of my best friend and me. I matted pictures of us cut into circles (you’re not the only one who cut up her pictures!)…BUT I didn’t realize that I could simply tape the circle picture onto the circle mat. I meticulously cut out the center of the mat in order to place the picture inside of it. When I realized (some time later…) that this was a wonky way of doing it, I felt as though I had found the holy grail!
The last scrapbook I did wasn’t even really created by me. I got married on 09.10.11, and my BFF/Matron of Honour (same from above) gave me a scrapbook, completely laid out, and I all I had to do was add the pictures. This was the best gift, in my opinion, that we received for our wedding!
I started scrapbooking around the same time, but didn’t even have creative memories or a local scrapbooking store. My supplies were ALL cut up magazines and the most interesting stationary papers I could buy at Staples. I also have tonnes of photos cut into stars, hearts and circles. I don’t feel the need to re-scrap the albums, but have scanned a few fave pics over the years and made new layouts.
FYI in your high school pics you look so much like Taylor Swift!
No laughing at all!! These are GREAT!
I need to pull out mine and share some of the awful things I did on the pages
Thanks for sharing, Amy!